Lit Why are so many published works being re-published in different mediums?

Lately it seems, Star Wars is taking recently published works, and then re-iterating them into different lit mediums. The Thrawn novel is being made into a comic series in February, Lost Stars is being made into a comic, Weapon of the Jedi and Smugglers Run are being made into comics in Germany. I don't get it? Why?What's the point? They were just made. Its not like any of them were TV series or movies. Why re-tell them? I can't believe that they were so popular that they needed to be re-released and this is a relatively recent thing. I know I will be called out again for being negative, but I can't but wonder if they are doing this because they aren't generating enough new content to fill the months of each business quarter.

As to why adaptations are done, the mundane answer is because it is thought there will be a market and audience for it. The only real requirement to justify an adaptation is a certain level of popularity and those works have that, others will not.

Also, not everyone enjoys reading books, some prefer comics, so the opportunity to read a story in comic form will be deemed more important than the novel original.

At the same time, comics can visualise the story more effectively which is why DHC's Invasion comic was looked forward to, it depicted the Vong vessels visually, which was a big improvement on the novel tendency of 'Vong Cruiser-analog'.

Edit: also they're not running out of ideas. Just because they're not giving us a picture of the publishing programme two years ahead of time doesn't mean it's an empty calendar. You gotta sit back, relax, don't panic before you have the facts.

By the way, I seem to remember reading somewhere that at some point there were plans to make comic adaptations of The Truce At Bakura and the Jedi Academy Trilogy. I could be misremembering though... Does anyone know?

I am excited to see what they do with the Thrawn mini-series. I found all the book adaptations to date to be very well done and interesting. Star Wars is more interesting to me when we have these different takes on the stories to discuss; the original comic adaptation of the movie and the differences between it and the movie is fascinating stuff.

Han Solo at Stars End was adapted to the newspaper then that was adapted to comic books. Shadows of the Empire was designed to be a multi-media event and the comic and the book only intersected, but told different stories.

All 3 Thrawn trilogy adaptations were very well done. I like them because they are dense and take considerable time to read. It was also interesting seeing the different take on some of the characters, particularly the Noghri which had a different look in all 3 mini-series. And we've seen yet another take on the Noghri in the Rebels animated series.

I really liked the Splinter of the Mind's Eye 4-issue mini-series. Dark Horse released many of these adaptations in their Star Wars line because they were experimenting to see what resonated with comic fans. To me, Dark Horse benefited greatly by mixing it up the first 10 years they had the license.

If Marvel does well with the Thrawn comic, I would love to see Marvel take the best of the new novels and adapt them as well. Who knows, maybe we'll get a spin-off story or two out of the deal which will further enhance these stories like we did with Shadows of the Empire: Evolution.

I'd imagine, given the opportunity, they'd have done the NJO in comic format as well. To be honest, I always see Star Wars more as visual and have always liked comic adaptions giving faces to names.

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Interesting story behind this. The "invasion" story was proposed by Dark Horse first. Lucasfilm in collaboration with their licensees change the story enough that apparently Dark Horse wasn't happy with the direction and let Del Rey run with it. Years after NJO completed, Dark Horse did contribute stories in the Star Wars: Invasion mini-series.

With that said, I too wish Dark Horse had contributed to NJO when it was being published.

I'd imagine, given the opportunity, they'd have done the NJO in comic format as well. To be honest, I always see Star Wars more as visual and have always liked comic adaptions giving faces to names.

Click to expand...

Interesting story behind this. The "invasion" story was proposed by Dark Horse first. Lucasfilm in collaboration with their licensees change the story enough that apparently Dark Horse wasn't happy with the direction and let Del Rey run with it. Years after NJO completed, Dark Horse did contribute stories in the Star Wars: Invasion mini-series.

With that said, I too wish Dark Horse had contributed to NJO when it was being published.

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Well from what I can tell on Wookieepedia Dark Horse did release "Star Wars: Chewbaca" (which showed his death on Sernpidal) while NJO was still going, and about a year after NJO concluded one of the stories in Star Wars Tales #21 was Kyle Katarn fighting the Vong.